Home About Us Book Catalogue Online Bookstore
VIPP Community of Practice > List of applications > Meena Communication Initiative for South Asia

Meena Communication Initiative for South Asia

Meena and her pet parrot, Mithu, are two central characters in this highly successful animation series which was created through a series of VIPP processes.

In UNICEF's Meena Communication Initiative (MCI) for the South Asian girl child, the creators understood the need to involve various sectors of the population to build regional ownership and acceptance. Listening to experiences and sharing ideas were key ways of teasing out the commonalities which have been reflected in the MCI multi-media packages. To maximize participation, the entire project was planned through a series of VIPP workshops in which participants from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives worked together to identify key problems of female children across the region, draft preliminary storylines, design characters, synthesize preliminary research findings, refine stories and develop production schedules. Workshops took place in the various participating countries with writers, artists, programmers, researchers, academics, and gender, health and education specialists.

These participatory workshops helped to build regional consensus on the characters and stories which addressed gender discrimination in education, health services, food and nutrition, as well as such issues as child labour, early marriage and dowry. Many VIPP methods were used to generate ideas and sensitively challenge creativity of the participants. Mini-drama, role plays, drawing exercises, energizers, buzz group and small group exercises and plenary discussions formed the crux of these group events. Drama, drawing exercises and role plays were found to be invaluable in generating ideas on difficult issues like psychosocial trauma related to natural disasters and civil conflicts. Diverse countries came together and were able to express their views in democratic, consultative processes through the use of various visualization techniques.

In the dissemination phase, VIPP methods were used and continue to be used to develop plans for implementation of Meena materials and strategies, as well as to plan and train field workers on the creative and effective uses of Meena to change the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of families and communities towards the girl child.

In the South Asia's hierarchical cultures, full participation of various groups of people was possible due to the use of VIPP methods and the outcomes of group events were focused and rich. It was also obvious that participants enjoyed expressing their ideas and they appreciated the learning that happened in group processes.

 
What is VIPP?
How was VIPP developed?
How is VIPP used?
List of applications
Planning and revising projects and programmes
Communication materials development and storyline planning
Putting research into action
Community-level development work, including PRA/PLA
Training workshops
Training of facilitators and trainers
Curricula development
Running conferences and information markets
Management, human resource planning and team building
Business meetings
Getting started
Clients or organizers
Time
Inaugurals and closings
Difficult participants
Diversity (gender, cultural, racial, socio-economic)
Logistics
Inexperienced Co-facilitators
Documentation and Reporting

Other issues

VIPP Online Discussions
VIPP Materials
VIPP facilitators and institutions?
Links to Related Websites
Useful VIPP Forms
Click here to return to the VIPP Community of Practice home page

HOME | ABOUT US | BOOK CATALOGUE | ONLINE BOOKSTORE
Southbound books on participatoty development communication and ICT for social change.
© Southbound Sdn. Bhd., 2020. All rights reserved.